Life During Warfare, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise

October 15, 2011 Martha Thomases 5 Comments

This week’s most popular buzzwords are “class warfare.”  The Republicans have trotted this out for a bunch of the last year, but, with the protesters in Zucotti Park inspiring others around the country, they’ve stepped up their game.

As Americans, we pride ourselves on our delusion that we have no class system.  It’s true that, unlike older countries, we have no titled gentry.  However, if you ask anyone who is a touch swarthy, or speaks with a regional accent, or whose last name ends in a vowel, you’ll find that they’ve faced lots of assumptions about their abilities and intelligence and taste, assumptions that feel a lot like discrimination based on the fact that they were born in the wrong kind of family.  And if your last name is “Kennedy” or “Bush” or “Hilton,” you get a leg up, whether you deserve it or not.

We’re Americans.  Making these assumptions beats thinking.

The GOP brought out the “class warfare” meme to discredit the motives of those who want to reform the tax codes so that those who earn more than $250,000 a year (or, if you’re Chuck Schumer, more than $1 million a year), you pay a higher percentage on the part of your income over that amount.  These proposals also include ending an exemption that allows money earned from certain financial instruments to be taxed at a lower rate than salaries.

Fewer than one percent of the country would have to pay more under these changes, and, in all cases, they would still have plenty of money to provide for themselves and their families.  Meanwhile, the average income of the other 99 percent has fallen.

So, where’s the class warfare?

According to arguments with which I mostly wither disagree or mostly agree, talk of tax reform pits average people against the rich.  

If you want the numbers behind the arguments, here is a handy bunch of diagrams, drawn from a fairly neutral set up numbers.

The Republicans would have you believe that they never indulge in class warfare.  However, as someone who has more than once been accused of being a latte-drinking, Volvo driving, Chardonnay-sipping liberal (even thoughI don’t have a car, drink my coffee black, and generally prefer a white wine that is less oaky), I suggest that they may be mistaken.

It’s not a new tactic.  The GOP has been using it for nearly 80 years.  They were wrong then, and they remain wrong.

My father was one of those men lauded by the Republicans, someone who took a chance as an entrepreneur in a new industry, made a lot of money and, in the process, created thousands of jobs.  He was a smart man, but he also knew he was lucky, and he knew he didn’t get to his level of success by himself.  He always voted for the Democrat, even if he knew it would cost him more in taxes, because there were issues that were more important to him than money.  He lived through the Depression, and he served in the Army.  He’d spent his honeymoon with my mother driving from New York to Florida, and he’d seen signs in motels that said, “No Jews” (and because Thomases is that kind of name, he’d registered anyway). He considered paying taxes somewhat akin to going to the dentist – it may be no fun, but you’re lucky that you have a to do it. 

My father knew that, no matter what they said, he’d never be considered part of the upper class.  

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, has always been proud of the fact that she’s no Lady.